David Whitehouse refined the narrative down to the following: “All the colour from Earth has disappeared due to the constellations disappearance. Causing the world to plunge into mono-coloured depression. So NASA has sent one man on a dangerous journey into space to reawaken the stars and revive the constellations.”
In light of this, I have refined my astronaut concept to make him have more of a proper spacesuit:
The original opening / title screen for the game had a rotating I put this together as a concept for the title / opening screen of the game:
I liked this idea, however I also liked the idea of having the constellations textured to a sphere with its normal’s inversed. The titles (and camera) would float inside the sphere as it rotated, so that the constellations move in 3D space. I feel like this would look and feel more like the night sky. I mocked this up and the test of it is below:
I found that the second one is just not as clean. Also, I realised that I really liked the way that the constellations rotate around the letter ‘d’ in the original version.
I have tried to fix these issues in this final version, which uses the 3D textured sphere and incorporated 2D text over the render:
At this point in time I am really not sure if the 3D textured sphere is worth doing. The 2D version looks cleaner and if I really want the curvature / depth I can apply a ‘fish eye’ filter to the constellations.
Constellations [Image]. (2013). Retrieved from
http://www.canstockphoto.de/photos-images/boreal.html#file_view.php?id=12361659
Skymap [Image]. (2010). Retrieved from
http://valarguild.org/varda/Tolkien/encyc/stars.html
After discussing my initial concepts with the team, we have decided on the planet idea.
Using this concept, the player would be an astronaut or alien moving through the layers on different planets when they reach the outer layer they will either use a spaceship / rocket or gravity to get to the next planet. Below is my rough character concept for the astronaut.
Given its size on the screen, the character has to be quite simple. It must also use a very dark grey colour palette so as to contrast against the brightly coloured planets. Below is my concept of the planet selection screen (where the player can see all the planets, see how many collectibles they found and see the locked planets):
David Whitehouse came up with the idea of setting the game in “inverted space”. Essentially its like regular space with inverted colours. This could be quite interesting and would work well with the dark astronaut suit:
Obviously, I will need to adjust the colours to suit the lighter background. Ideally, we will have themed planets and a colour palette that matches each one.
To tie this all together I created a new concept that incorporates most aspects of the new design.
I really like the flat minimalist shapes and wanted to keep this aspect of the design. However, the colours and background decorations need to be changed to suit the narrative. My initial narrative and game concepts are below:
For the main character of the game, it must have a distinctive shape and be a mostly black silhouette in order to stand out against the different colours. In addition to this, all of the ‘dangers’ in the game are spiky and all the ‘good things’ are round. This is something that I have kept in mind when I work on the character design. Below are my initial sketches for the character:
As the character is going to be quite small I have gone for simple, distinctive designs.
The idea is that the character will be a 3D model with flat textures and shaders so as to look 2D.
I have began working on a cross-discipline game project with David Whitehouse. The project is called Radial and is a 2.5D game that we will be working to expand on and finish this Trimester. Currently, the game utilizes minimalist design and does not feature narrative. I will be working on the story, overall design and character animation.
Opening screen of the game
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